Groundhog Day

I've been struggling to write anything lately, although when I tell people I have "writer's block" I'm usually 50,000 words into a story.  Anyway, it was around this time (according to Microsoft Word, it was February 6th) that I began to write my first novel.  It's amazing to look back on a year's worth of work and see five completed novels, and a sixth one well underway.  My books are scattered across various states and, according to the reports, downloaded in various countries.  I am so thankful for family and friends in Wisconsin, Tennessee, and New Mexico, to name a few, for taking a chance on me.  I love you for reading and enjoying and appreciating me as an author.  I've said it before many times, but I had no clue when I started to write the first book that it would ever turn into anything at all.  I just wanted to write and finish a book, with the only criteria being the 50,000 word goal.  I always wind up surpassing my goal, which I am sure is both good and bad.  I learned in college that a five-page-paper means no more than five pages, and I have to imagine a publisher would feel the same way.  If I ever get a contract, I'll try to work on my plotting.  The oddity and discrepancy, at any rate, comes from the differing writing styles--my two stand-alone books feature one of the main characters in every scene, whereas the Windswept saga turns that on its ear, including multi-generational scenes that usually revolve around the main characters even if they are not featured.  That's a lot of exposition, I know, so I am tinkering with it as I go.

 The accompanying photo is of Groundhog Day snow.  When that sort of thing happens, a groundhog looking for its shadow becomes immaterial.